Police say Rec was unconscious and being given CPR by fire department personnel at 2:15 a.m. when they responded to a report of a possible overdose at 28 East Britannia St., in the city’s Whittenton neighborhood.

Police said a 23-year-old woman in the apartment told them both she and Rec injected a $20 bag of heroin the night before. She dialed 911 after he started to snore, fell to the floor and stopped breathing, police said.

The woman was not charged with a crime as per the state’s so-called Good Samaritan law which protects anyone who reports a drug overdose to save a life from being charged with drug possession.

The same woman, however, was arrested in 2013 for heroin possession and selling or delivering alcohol to a minor, according to police.

Kevin Rec, 45, of Taunton, who said he was Nicholas Rec’s uncle, declined to discuss his nephew’s death, other than to say the younger Rec did not have a history of drug abuse leading up to his Thursday morning overdose.

Taunton has been hit hard with heroin overdoses during the past four to five months, which now number 136 since the beginning of the year, according to police.

A combination of cheap prices and strong heroin — which dealers sometimes cut with a powerful painkiller called Fentanyl, police said — has led to the pronounced spike in overdoses.